Final Thoughts

This class is easily my favorite of this semester. All the material that we covered and learned about is useful to me in my field and all the little quotes about literature and life really breath new life into the interest of my career. Some days it is hard to possibly read any more literature, but with English 300 I always actually looked forward to the class. The way it was set up and the assignments were all well done. The myriad of presentations, group projects, and speeches was both didactic and refreshing. Most classes are pure discussion based or lecture based; I'm glad this class had a healthy mix of the two with daily oddballs thrown in there for good measure. If Longinus was in the class he might of referred to the feeling I had walking away from the classroom as "sublime".

Spectacles/Shoe Analogy

"Putting on a different pair of spectacles"
"Walking in the shoes of another."

These two quotes close to the same thing. Both tell the reader to look at things from a different point of view. I believe all literary critics must do this in order to have a complete and unbiased understanding of literature and any other topics out there. My parents raised my with this concept in mind and I guess that is why I am a reader response critic; no one person's interpretation of the text is correct. The correct interpretation of the text is unique to however is reading. The fact that putting on different pairs of spectacles actually physically changes how you view a certain subject really gives you a good idea of what it takes to read a text in a unbaised and unjudged fashion. Even though I don't wear glasses, I do change pairs of spectacles everyday.

My biography

I plan to write a few books in my time as an English major and teacher, both for my colleagues and my students to read and reflect on. I will insert countless quotes from books and numerous poems that help describe my growth as a human being and what literature influenced my life. Deconstructionists would point out that I should put my entire existence in the text, because according to them, there is no outside the text. Hypothetically, I'm writing and creating my biography everyday and the day that my biography is published is the day I leave this world. Kind of an interesting take on an authors choice of words for his text eh?

Frye, Page 100

" In short, we can get a whole liberal education simply by picking up one conventional poem and following its archetypes as they stretch out in to the rest of literature."

This quote very basically describes what his book is laying out there to the reader. Find an archetype in a book and you can follow that same character in countless other forms of literature and also in everyday life. I'm sure there are the romantics and the realists out there; me, I'm a hopeless romantic, but what poetry loving English major doesn't. DQ was used to further deploy Frye's thesis, there are many in the world that dream of doing what DQ just decided to get up and do. He is an icon and obviously an archetype for the romantic hero in a modern world. The quote seems to me as an easy, if true, way out of doing a lot of research and reading a lot of books. I believe that is part of the journey in learning the texts of old and new.

Literature is Everywhere

When I heard Professor Sexson say this to me at the beginning of this course, I really didn't understand what it meant and honestly I didn't really believe that literature was in EVERYTHING. At the end of the course I can safely say that I finally understand the accuracy of this statement. Without literature, most things on Earth cease to function. See that math problem? If there weren't words and symbols to explain the equation ( thus literature ) you couldn't solve it. An archetect cannot fully portray the demensions of a building and the functions for each room without using English to write down the instrustions; it would just be a picture of a building without literature. I even put this quote about literature in my English Major Apology. I see now that English and literature are in everything; makes my job easier right? Or harder?

Frye, what a guy

Before reading Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" I really had no idea of how the class was actually going to critique the required text. At first, his language and numerous claims about literature went way over my head. I don't think I really caught on to his writing for the first month, but when I finally did, I fully realized just how great of a job Frye has done in classifying all forms of literature. As I read on and on into his book, many "light bulbs" sprung up in my head regarding past books that I have read and what category they belong in. The truths of much of literature appeared before my eyes like they have been there all the time...and well they have. This is easily the most influential text regarding literature in my college career so far.

I Gave DQ a chance.

Honestly I didn't want to read Don Quixote because of what I have heard of it in the past; it seemed just really boring to me. Thank you for the scholarly slap in the face, professor Sexson, as soon as I started reading the book I became deeply absorbed by the fascinating character that is DQ. Cervantes' writing style is enjoyable to read and I never really felt like I had to read the book, more like I wanted to read it. This class's disection of DQ has been very educational and actually help explain some of the cloudier subjects related to me first by Frye. Thank you professor for "making" me read this wonderful text!